Sacred Heart
by Sally6
Summary: Hermione meets Snape again in Paris. Fluffy standalone.


A/N: I don't own anything - etc etc. This is just something I wrote when it was raining outside and I had nothing else to do, so it's not my fault if it's a bit naff.  
  
Sacred Heart  
  
Finally completing the ascent, through the darkened and winding stone staircases of the Sacre Coeur, Hermione was astonished at how the staggering view across Paris still took her breath away after all this time.  
  
She had been living in Paris for over two years now, and though the popular cathedral was familiar to her it still seemed to hold so many mysteries and past encounters lost in time amongst its roof-top walkways that she found it an enchanting place to spend her free time, whether she were studying, reading or just watching time crawl past.  
  
Ever since she had visited Paris as a girl with her parents she had known that one day she would return. Life here was so much brighter than she had ever found it in London. Tiny bistros tucked away in corners, patisseries, wide, open streets and an abundant supply of bookshops and museums combined her favourite aspects of city and country life. Of course, she didn't consider herself to be a fully fledged Parisian, well not yet anyway, but she spoke the language fluently and after the cramped familiarity of Hogwarts it was nice to live somewhere were nobody knew of Hermione past.  
  
Edging her way around the curved path surrounding the main dome, she located her usual seat on a worn stone bench and flattening her skirt under her, took in the view of blue-grey rooftops, drinking in the freedom of being so high up with a few deep refreshing breaths.  
  
It was a grey, yet clear, day outside of the tourist season so she found herself alone, as far as she could tell, a heavy silence pressing in on her. Picking up her book, an espionage novel she had spotted on one of the many roadside stalls and had been unable to resist as a test of how good her French was, and turning to the page where her bookmark lay, she became completely absorbed; the silence around her suddenly filled with intrigue.  
  
***  
  
Sensing only one other person on the other side of the dome, he apparated straight to the cathedral's summit, the treacherous stairways seeming too much to manage today. Leaning over the edge of the low -balustrade?-- he gripped the stone with his lean hands and absorbed the view drowning his vision and crawling over the land.  
  
It hit him like a flat blow to the head every time. He was so high up, his troubles so far below, so far away, it was like freedom. Freedom from the past and the future. All that mattered was this paused present.  
  
He never brought anything with him. He didn't want to waste the peace he was so often deprived of. Pulling his long dark hair back into a low ponytail he let his lean frame hang ever so slightly over the edge as he drank in the peace like a fine wine.  
  
***  
  
Realising that she could no longer sense where her feet were, Hermione arched her back up against the stone and decided to stretch the feeling back into her limbs. Walking leisurely around the circumference of the dome, she began to feel the presence of another person just around the corner from her. It wasn't so much that she could hear their breathing or even see them yet, it was more the faint tang of a mans perfume on the air that alerted her to a male presence.  
  
Reaching up to pat back her hair, afterall she didn't know who this man might be, she stepped around to where he was dangling his arms over the edge of the worn stone balustrade, something about the way his long, slim fingers traced an invisible pattern through the air sent waves of familiarity and arousal through Hermione's spine to rest in the pit of her stomach and she found herself unable to resist the urge to advance another step.  
  
He had heard, of course, the tread of another as they neared him but it was not uncommon for the occasional local to pay a visit to the local cathedral, and so Severus acted in a suitably Parisian manner and refused to change his stance. His manner changed, however, when a suddenly all-too- aware Hermione let out a whispered, "P-Professor Snape?" and he was forced to whip round and face this unwelcome addition to the day.  
  
Her hair was different; he noticed this first. Snape had found at a very young age that other people's hair was always substantially more attractive than his own and had recently fallen into the trap of valuing it almost above all other physical features. Hers fell in deep thick curls of the richest hazel, a far cry from the bushy mass of her schooldays, and Severus found his eyes unwittingly drawn to them. Other features had altered too, naturally. Her body had filled out in all the usual places a woman's would and something in her eyes suggested a recent maturity that she had not possessed as a student. Snape was disgusted by the way his body responded to her close proximity, mere inches away, on the suddenly cramped balcony. He wondered how long it had been since...  
  
"Call me Severus. You're too old to call me professor." No wonder he never got laid with chat-up lines like those.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry," she tested this new intimacy tentatively, "...Severus."  
  
He gave a curt nod in response and quickly shifted his gaze away from her chest. An awkward silence grew and the air between them seemed to thicken in its wake.  
  
Anxious not to appear a complete fool, and desperately longing not to let such an opportunity to go to waste, Snape decided to break the silence in a rare moment of forwardness.  
  
"Would you care for some coffee Miss Granger? I know a pleasant café not far from here."  
  
"Oh, yes, I mean, that would be nice, thankyou. But please," Hermione smiled slightly, her cheeks faintly rosy, "Don't call me Miss Granger."  
  
"As you wish.*Hermione*."  
  
***  
  
After a while, once the obligatory tension in the air due to their former relationship had passed, the two English Parisians found themselves strangely at ease in the others company. It seemed odd to Hermione, looking back, that she had not realises as a student how much the two of them had in common. She supposed that it was due to the fact that every child feels as though their teachers are not really people, but merely objects which exist solely to teach with varying degrees of success and are then stored away somewhere between classes.  
  
They had the same intense passion for learning, an insatiable desire for knowledge, and yet they also shared in a quiet appreciation of the finer things in life. A small park out of the way of the London traffic, a properly brewed cup of coffee, a good book were held in as high a regard as such things as fine art and the music of Bach. Hermione smiled to herself as she sipped at her cappuccino, who would have thought it, and yet it seemed so natural, so past-less.  
  
He was running the calloused balls of his fingers over the edge of his saucer and she realised that his profession must make him a very tactile person. Revelling in the feel of velvety leaves and the crushing of dried herbs between finger and thumb. Hermione thought for a moment how it would feel to have those slender fingers run over her skin with the same reverence, the same drinking in of sensuality. She quickly pushed the thought away to the back of her mind.  
  
Leaving a few notes scattered on the top the bill, Snape asked her if she would like to take a stroll through the downhill market next door. Hermione said she would, and so they both left the café and walked out into the early evening light. 


End file.
